


You Have More to Leave

by gaytoxe



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Post-Game, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 03:23:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21246677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytoxe/pseuds/gaytoxe
Summary: It never was a home, really, because even at home guilt plagued him, stomach doing flips from the intense amount of beer in his system and heart aching from how painfully isolated he was from the rest of the world. Curtains never opened, only staying in the same space and only visiting the bar outside, he didn’t even feel real in his own skin. He followed the same schedule every single day since then and never derived from it, and closing his eyes that are full of regret for all the trouble he knows he caused, he stands there in the doorway of the small kitchen he used to have.





	You Have More to Leave

**Author's Note:**

> hi! more postgame kaito, except a new concept; i thought him saying goodbye to his old house of bad memories would be growth for him(?), so here’s some recovery! also because i watched chapter 5 in v3 with the original japanese dub and i cried, so i needed this.
> 
> anyway, if you’d like to see more, i have a tumblr if you wanna talk about anything i write or oumota! look for @gaytoxe on tumblr!

“If you need someone to go with you, Momota-kun,” Shuichi tries, “I can—“

Momota stops him with a smile despite all the memories that fill his head of that place, full of the aroma of whiskey and sorrowful nights where he would waste the night away watching the news coverage on Danganronpa, hoping he’d at least see something about the others. About him. And he thinks about telling Shuichi all the things he whispers to his plants, his secrets sealed in every fiber of their green leaves, never to be shared to another soul.

“I’m fine! I got this. Just gotta say goodbye and clean up is all. Don’t worry about me,” Momota reassures him instead, grinning his regular grin even though the way his stomach curls in slight disgust at taking one step in that prison again and breathing the stuffy and desperate air that he knows will fog his mind with visions of his old self when he first moved there causes an unsettling feeling to nest in his chest.

He’s never had good memories associated with that house, and for a while, he nudged it under the rug to deal with later since bringing it up seemed unnecessary ever since Shuichi and Harukawa confronted him after never receiving any messages from him.

The fresh air he breathes he realizes is a lot freer than he once thought, and the taste of something other than the vulgar and burning sting of alcohol on his throat shoved him towards a better reality. He’s grateful to them, his sidekicks. More than they’ll ever know and more than he’s constantly expressed to them. They’re the reason he’s free and the reason he finally talked to Ouma again, and while he doesn’t always enjoy the therapy sessions, he’s growing familiar with them.

To have them both in his life to guide him outwards of his spiral of thoughts is something he’ll never be able to repay, but he’ll move mountains if it means repaying them even a smidge.

-

Slamming the door to his car, Momota steps onto the familiar concrete and trudges up to the door he knows all too well, the wood a little worn from the last time he actually focused on it but still the same. And despite the time passing, the rehabilitation he’s gone through, his hand quivers a little, resting on the doorknob.

It’ll be the same as when he left it, he thinks, but as soon as the thought enters his mind he swallows the lump in his throat and creaks the door open, refusing to let himself cower away and go home without cleaning up the place he knows will be a hassle to fix up.

Brown bottles adorning the carpeted floor are waiting for him when he sets foot inside, careless stains accompanying them from the nights he used to think himself to death and ended up drinking to distract himself.

God, does it smell like fucking shit.

The first sensation that presents itself in him, running throughout his body, is disgust because all he can smell and breathe in is the horrid stench of whiskey he thought and wished he’d forgotten. But it’s as suffocating as ever to stand in that room, not even two inches inside.

Imagining how much he must’ve worried Shuichi and Harukawa by never replying to them only to find him here, in this clutter, stung him more than expected, but he continues, refusing to dwell on it before becoming swallowed up again in the sea of his mind, willing to chain him down and never recoil if he even slips up once or lets himself think for too long.

Soon arrives the fog of disappointment that drifts through him as he inches further inside, thinking about how hopeless he must’ve seemed to Shuichi and Harukawa once more when every time he breathes he can taste the burning sensation on his tongue that he’s unsure is just his imagination or the house.

It never was a home, really, because even at home guilt plagued him, stomach doing flips from the intense amount of beer in his system and heart aching from how painfully isolated he was from the rest of the world. Curtains never opened, only staying in the same space and only visiting the bar outside, he didn’t even feel real in his own skin. He followed the same schedule every single day since then and never derived from it, and closing his eyes that are full of regret for all the trouble he knows he caused, he stands there in the doorway of the small kitchen he used to have.

A prison of shame and criticism he imagined never possessed a door out because before he could even imagine its existence, he had been swallowed whole into the abyss of remorse and swarming contemplation of who he could’ve been and why he was terrible for not being the same.

He purses his lips together, unsure of himself in that moment if he’d just spend all day thinking about old and shitty memories as they dance around in his brain and appear all at once or get things done.

In that moment, Momota feels so strangely alone, even if he doesn’t live there anymore. It’s as if he’s opening an old scab he left alone to heal and finally realized existed again.

All the times hopelessness crept up on him and wrapped its arms around him become evident, and Momota keeps wondering why he hadn’t been a better person. It didn’t matter whether he was talking about during the game or after because it was both, and he’s not sure Harukawa or Shuichi will understand him if he tries calling. 

He knows calling for help won’t solve his untouched struggle. It’s something he has to deal with himself; something he’s not going to really forget until a long time later, even though he’s not necessarily okay with it.

He could’ve done so many things: could’ve tried to been nicer to Ouma, could’ve been less weak, could’ve done more to help everyone, could’ve reached out more to Harukawa, could’ve stopped her from choking Ouma, could’ve accepted his help in the hangar sooner.

All these things his mind used to be sure he could’ve done Momota isn’t sure of anymore when he runs through the same scenes over and over in his head; as if he’d forget them after all this goddamn time. 

It’s odd to stand in that house, to not be entranced by any of the beer or the beckoning to sit down and watch the news in hopes of hearing something, anything new. None of those thoughts enter his mind; they’re small, withering away in the crevices of the walls to hide.

Momota scoffs and rolls up his sleeves, beginning to round up bottles to toss in a trash bag and toss later. Without the weight of urges and thoughts perched heavily on his shoulders, nothing holds him back from  
leaving and never returning. He can leave whenever he wants, and nothing is telling him not to.

He trapped himself there, he realizes. Kept himself in a cage, kept himself hopeless because he didn’t think he deserved anything better and going out now would make him even more of a disappointment as a human being. All because “you didn’t deserve it” and “you don’t get a choice” and “this is what you get for not being strong enough.”

“God,” Kaito grumbles to himself, tears forming behind his eyelids as his hand runs through his hair. “I’m so fucked up.”

But he continues scavenging, refusing to leave it in the mess that it is; it’d stop bothering him at night when he would sit alone and think about how terribly he took care of it.

His lungs breathe their own air, (a not so pleasant air), an air created by his own doing but no longer bothers him because he knows there’s a speck of light ready to burst from a single touch waiting for him.

At first, Momota did consider bringing someone with him, but now that he’s there, fetching bottles, it would’ve been so fucking embarrassing. Way too embarrassing. He laughs at himself and a tired but content exhale drags out from his lips. 

There’s lots wrong with him, but he knows he’ll face it head on anyway because progress is possible, no matter how hopeless he thinks it is. All those thoughts and dreams formerly would taunt and tease him of all the mistakes he made, dissecting him and pinpointing everything he didn’t like about himself for the sole purpose of jumbling his own body up. 

Now, it’s silent in his mind. Thoughts and urges finally found their resting place in the house, seeping into the couch, sneaking into the cracks of the walls, nestling into the floor.

He thinks, but he doesn’t think too much.

-

It takes Momota a while to finish. Not because of the immense amount of bottles; he has more to leave behind than just an empty, cleaned house.

When the stuffy air doesn’t follow him outside of the house and fresh autumn oxygen fills his lungs, the tears he’s been holding back roll down his cheeks, a bright smile on his face as he watches the crimson, orange and lemon painted trees dance in the wind.

Momota reaches up to touch the blue sky and the white fluffy clouds that part to make way for the shimmering sun beaming down at him, and he feels like screaming, excitement bubbling up in his chest and excited tears pricking his eyes again.

He’s free. Really, truly, free. Left his old self behind in that house and finally in the reality that his triumph isn’t fiction. It’s real, his pain is real, but the exhilarating electrical shock of enthusiasm that surges through his heart is real, too.

He’s himself, standing on the concrete, watching the leaves ride the breeze into the distance, extending his hand toward the sun and breathing in air that brings tears to his eyes because he wants to breathe it. And he lets out a roar, louder than any thought he’s ever had; bigger than him and life itself. His body screams with him, lungs shoving air in and out, no longer bound to a body it doesn’t wish to be in and no longer belonging to a person who wishes they never existed in the first place.

No longer is he Luminary Of The Stars or the Ultimate Astronaut. Just Momota is fine, and keeping it that way, without a title to burden him from following his heart, doesn’t sound bad at all.

Momota isn’t okay. Fuck, he knows he won’t be. But he’ll get as damn close to it as he can.

No longer are his victories embedded into twisted fiction that exploits him only to drag him off to his death in the depth of the cosmos above; everything he feels is real. His breath, his thoughts, every single step he takes.

He will keep taking steps, one in front of the other, because to finally be able to say you’re more than a fictional story made for a crowd of people whose desire is to watch you suffer is a damn good thing.


End file.
